A Shade of Vampire 77 A Fate of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,59

of them nodded, allowing her to put them to sleep. The fifth, however, a big and burly specimen with unnaturally long arms, shook his head, his whispery language sending shivers down my spine.

"He says he'll look his ending in the face. It cannot be worse than the agony he's experienced for the past two hundred years since he abandoned his Reaper post and became… well, this," Kelara replied.

I understood then that not all ghouls were alike. Many were primal and cruel, yes, and they'd made notable enemies against GASP's founders before. Not this particular batch, but still, most of the ones here looked as murdery as the ones Derek and Sofia had dealt with. But some, like Herbert, did not like their condition. While a few had learned to live with it, others were perfectly fine with dying in this war, either by battle, by Reaper execution, or by sacrificing themselves as energy sources for our travel spell.

Things were not black and white for the ghouls, just as they were not black and white for the Reapers. Life, in all its forms and dimensions, was a multitude of gray shades through which we all had to navigate.

In order to do that, though, we needed to find the Spirit Bender and Death. The former had to be stopped, no matter the cost, and the latter was to be released, so there would be life left beyond today.

Amelia

The spell bubble was enormous, compared to the ones we'd traveled in before. We had a small army of ghouls with us, and, despite the goosebumps their presence gave me, I also carried a sense of relief with me. There weren't many things that could hurt an old Reaper like the Spirit Bender—not to mention his specters. We were bound to run into both in our quest to save Death. Summoning Reapers was understandably a time-consuming and difficult task, so the ghouls had come in at the right time.

I suspected the universe itself might've played a hand in this. I'd always considered it to be an entity of its own, too big and cosmic to bother with life on an individual level, too bogged down in primordial rules to intervene directly. But strings could still be pulled, and pieces knocked over across the chessboard, enough to set things in motion and bring us closer to our objective.

Of course, this was no guarantee we'd win. There were only a few fae left for the Hermessi to influence. Hopefully, the tracking magic would lead us to the right place, and the swamp witches would use all the power they had to move our spell bubble beyond the speed of light.

Our crew sat on the faux floor at the front, with a full view of space as it opened up before us. Trillions of stars and planets were sprinkled across the endless, black canvas. Asteroid fields and streams of colorful stardust. Swirling galaxies and rogue comets.

Behind us, the Reapers stood next to each other, fearlessly gazing ahead. The ghouls were clearly not accustomed to this method of travel, fidgeting and murmuring among themselves with nervous twitches. There was no turning back now, though. We were already halfway across the Earthly Dimension, with no idea where Death's pebble was taking us.

I leaned against Raphael's shoulder, thankful to still have him with me. For a while, no one said anything. There wasn't much left to speak about. We were headed toward the lion's den, in a sense, and we had no idea what would be waiting for us.

Herbert was in pretty bad shape, but he was determined to see this through to the end. Varga, now back at full strength and holding Eva in his arms for comfort, couldn't take his eyes off the ghoul.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"I wonder what he's thinking," Varga said. "This can't have been easy for him. He's taking this whole crew of ghouls he's gathered straight back to Death. I mean, she's not like us. She might not care about their good deeds, especially if they're balanced against their previous actions—including their decision to abandon Reaperhood and eat souls for a living."

"Maybe he's tired. Maybe they're all tired and hoping there's a better way," I replied. "Look at us. We're out here, going out of our way to find a better end for ourselves. We're driven by something deep within us, this idea that how things are is not how they're supposed to be."

Herbert looked at Varga and whispered something, prompting the sentry to